Nicolas Cage set to star in film about the making of Madden

Nic Cage and Madden is a dream combo

Madden NFL / EA Sports

EA Sports’ Madden NFL is one of the biggest game series on the planet, seeing success in not just the US but in plenty of other countries, too — strange for a game based on a sport played solely in the US. Still, it was inevitable that, with the success of the game, it would someday get turned into a movie, and that’s exactly what’s happening. 

According to a report from THR, Amazon MGM Studios has roped Nicolas Cage – star of Face/Off, Ghost Rider, and most recently Longlegs – into appearing in an upcoming Madden film. Cage will reportedly be portraying John Madden, the late, legendary football coach and commentator that helped create the series that bears his name. 

The upcoming film will reportedly be based on Madden’s life, though THR says it won’t be the usual biopic, or a sports drama, but instead more of a video game film, detailing the origins of the Madden NFL series and how it came to be. 

The Madden NFL series started in 1988 as John Madden Football, after EA founder Trip Hawkins approached Madden in 1984 to give a face to the game and provide expertise to make it more authentic. EA obtained the NFL license in 1993, and the rest is history. 

This obviously isn’t the first video game film adaptation, not even close, but it is one that’s a little bit different — necessarily so, given the gameplay and story in Madden is just… football. Still, it should hopefully avoid it turning out like the Borderlands movie, which everybody hates, especially fans of the games. 

We’ve seen this approach before, too, with Apple TV’s 2023 Tetris film, which was (very) loosely based on the true story of how Tetris came to be such a big hit. That film took a lot of liberties with the story, and we’d imagine this upcoming Madden film will probably be a little bit more faithful. Still, with Nicolas Cage in the leading role, anything is possible. 

The timing of this casting decision is pretty good for EA, too given the next Madden game came out today. Madden NFL 25 promises deep customization in its Franchise Mode with Team Builder, as the development team revealed to GLHF in a preview event earlier this year.